Cecil House

Last updated November 08, 2024

Cecil House refers to two historical mansions on the Strand, London, in the vicinity of the Savoy. The first was a 16th-century house on the north side, where the Strand Palace Hotel now stands. The second was built in the early 17th century on the south side nearly opposite, where Shell Mex House stands today.

Exeter House

The first, also called Exeter House or Burghley House, was on the north side of The Strand; it was built in the 16th century by William Cecil (later Lord Burghley) as an expansion of an existing house;^[a] Cecil moved his London residence there in 1560, and Queen Elizabeth I of England supped with him there, in July 1561, "before my house was fully finished", Cecil recorded in his diary, calling the place "my rude new cottage."^[1] When Cecil was created Lord Burghley in 1571, this London seat became known as Burghley House. It was a symmetrical double-courtyard brick house of three storeys, with four-storey corner turrets. A central entrance led from The Strand into the front court.^[b] At its garden front, with a central bay window and corner turrets, the house looked over gardens on grounds purchased from the Earl of Bedford and the earl's fields of Covent Garden beyond. The garden included a mount with a spiralling path to its top, a paved tennis court, a bowling alley, and an orchard.^[1]

The house became the residence of Burghley's elder son, Thomas Cecil, created Earl of Exeter in 1605; thus, in Wenceslas Hollar's bird's-eye view of London (circa 1658), it is labelled "Exeter House". The structure formed a notch in the north side of The Strand.^[c] It was converted in 1676 into Exeter Exchange, famous for its menagerie of wild animals, and demolished in 1829.^[1] Exeter Hall, built to be the largest meeting place in the world's largest city, was erected between 1829 and 1831 on the site to designs by John Peter Gandy.^[2] It was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century and the Strand Palace Hotel was constructed on the site.

Salisbury House

The second, more commonly known as Salisbury House, was built on the waterfront opposite the existing house, by Lord Burghley's younger son, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, around the turn of the 17th century.^[3] Some of the architect Simon Basil's plans and elevations for Salisbury House survive.^[4] Cecil employed William Portington, the master carpenter of the royal Office of Works.^[5]

John Manningham described an entertainment of welcome at this new house for Elizabeth I in December 1602. The hall was decorated with weapons. As the queen arrived speeches were given by the characters of a maid, a wife and a widow, praising the virgin state. A Turkish lady admired her linguistic skills and gave her a mantle.^[6]

On 2 September 1603 a canoe was brought to Cecil's house in London and rowed on the Thames by three Virginian Indians from Tsenacommacah.^[7] The churchman and writer Godfrey Goodman saw a suite of embroidered green velvet wall hangings at Salisbury House, which Robert Cecil had intended as a gift for Queen Anne. He had to keep them himself after she discovered he had helped King James deny her money for her building projects at Somerset House.^[8]

The property was divided by his heir, William Cecil, into two parts, of which the lesser was demolished in 1678 to make room for a new residential street, Salisbury Street. The central part of the building was converted to shops and officially renamed the Middle Exchange, though in character, the building was of ill repute, being known as the "Whores' Nest"; this part of the building was finally demolished around 1695, along with the remainder of the house, to make room for a new road named Cecil Street. The site was subsequently used for the Hotel Cecil, named after this house, and is currently occupied by Shell Mex House.

Notes

↑ The house, on the site of the rectory of St Clement Danes, was built by Sir Thomas Palmer, disgraced for his support of Lady Jane Grey and executed with John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland in 1553.^[1]
↑ A coloured plan of the house and garden as it was ca 1562–67, discovered in the muniment room, Burghley House, in 1999 (Burghley MS M358), provided the first detailed architectural information: "it is also the earliest representation of any English garden".^[1]
↑ Seen in the engraving above and in John Norden's map of Westminster, London, in Speculum Britanniae , 1593.^[1]

Related Research Articles

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. In his description in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, A.F. Pollard wrote, "From 1558 for forty years the biography of Cecil is almost indistinguishable from that of Elizabeth and from the history of England."

Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, was an English statesman noted for his direction of the government during the Union of the Crowns, as Tudor England gave way to Stuart rule (1603). Lord Salisbury served as the Secretary of State of England (1596–1612) and Lord High Treasurer (1608–1612), succeeding his father as Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Privy Seal and remaining in power during the first nine years of King James I's reign until his own death.

Marquess of Salisbury is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1789 for the 7th Earl of Salisbury. Most of the holders of the title have been prominent in British political life over the last two centuries, particularly the 3rd Marquess, who served three times as Prime Minister in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Strand is a major street in the City of Westminster, Central London. The street, which is part of London's West End theatreland, runs just over 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) from Trafalgar Square eastwards to Temple Bar, where it becomes Fleet Street in the City of London, and is part of the A4, a main road running west from inner London.

Marquess of Exeter is a title that has been created twice, once in the peerage of England and once in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation came in the peerage of England in 1525 for Henry Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon. For more information on this creation, which was forfeited in 1538, see Earl of Devon.

Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, KG, known as Lord Burghley from 1598 to 1605, was an English politician, courtier and soldier.

Burghley House is a grand sixteenth-century English country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire. It is a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, built and still lived in by the senior (Exeter) branch of the Cecil family and is Grade I listed.

Northumberland House was a large Jacobean townhouse in London, so-called because it was, for most of its history, the London residence of the Percy family, who were the Earls and later Dukes of Northumberland and one of England's richest and most prominent aristocratic dynasties for many centuries. It stood at the far western end of the Strand from around 1605 until it was demolished in 1874. In its later years it overlooked Trafalgar Square.

Katherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk was an English court office holder who served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark.

Theobalds House in the parish of Cheshunt in the English county of Hertfordshire, north of London, was a significant stately home and (later) royal palace of the 16th and early 17th centuries.

York House was one of a series of grand mansions that formerly stood on the Strand, the principal route from the City of London to the Palace of Westminster.

The King's Manor is a Grade I listed building in York, England, and is part of the University of York. It lies on Exhibition Square, in the city centre.

The Exeter Exchange was a building on the north side of the Strand in London, with an arcade extending partway across the carriageway. It is most famous for the menagerie that occupied its upper floors for over fifty years, from 1773 until the building was demolished in 1829.

Worksop Manor is a Grade I listed 18th-century country house in Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire. It stands in one of the four contiguous estates in the Dukeries area of Nottinghamshire. Traditionally, the Lord of the Manor of Worksop may assist a British monarch at his or her coronation by providing a glove and putting it on the monarch's right hand and supporting his or her right arm. Worksop Manor was the seat of the ancient Lords of Worksop.

Simon Basil was an English surveyor or architect, who held the post of Surveyor of the King's Works, 1606-15.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Herbert, Countess of Montgomery</span> English court office holder

Susan Herbert, Countess of Montgomery, was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England and Scotland, Anne of Denmark. She was the youngest daughter of Elizabethan courtier, and poet Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Wimbledon manor house; the residence of the lord of the manor, was an English country house at Wimbledon, Surrey, now part of Greater London. The manor house was over the centuries exploded, burnt and several times demolished. The first known manor house, The Old Rectory was built around 1500 still stands as a private home, despite very nearly falling into a state beyond repair, in the 19th century. The ambitious later Elizabethan prodigy house, Wimbledon Palace, was "a house of the first importance" according to Sir John Summerson, and is now demolished.

In British usage, the term townhouse originally referred to the opulent town or city residence of a member of the nobility or gentry, as opposed to their country seat, generally known as a country house or, colloquially, for the larger ones, stately home. The grandest of the London townhouses were stand-alone buildings, but many were terraced buildings.

The Somerset House Conference, 1604 is an oil-on-canvas painting depicting the Somerset House Conference held in 1604 to negotiate the end the Anglo-Spanish War. It is a group portrait, depicting the 11 representatives of the governments of England, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, seated around a conference table, probably in old Somerset House.

Bedford House also called Russell House was the Elizabethan and Jacobean London home of the Russell family, Earls of Bedford, situated on the site of the present Southampton Street on the north side of the Strand. It was demolished in 1704 after the family had relocated to Bloomsbury.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 Husselby, Jill; Henderson, Paula (2002). "Location, Location, Location! Cecil House on the Strand". Architectural History. 45. SAHGB Publications: 160–164. doi:10.2307/1568781. JSTOR 1568781.
↑ Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 3rd ed. (Yale University Press, 1995), s.v. "Gandy, afterwards Deering, John Peter". Exeter Hall was one of his last architectural commissions before inheriting a fortune, adopting the additional surname Deering and retiring to the country as a gentleman.
↑ Manolo Guerci, 'Salisbury House in London, 1599-1694: The Strand Palace of Sir Robert Cecil', Architectural History, 52 (2009), pp. 31-78.
↑ Manolo Guerci, London's Golden Mile: The Great Houses of the Strand (Yale, 2021), pp. 139-147.
↑ J. F. Merritt, The social world of early modern Westminster: Abbey, court and community (Manchester, 2005), p. 120.
↑ John Bruce, Diary of John Manningham (London, 1868), pp. 99-100.
↑ Alden T. Vaughan, Transatlantic Encounters: American Indians in Britain, 1500-1776 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 43: David B. Quinn, 'Virginians on the Thames in 1603', Terrae Incognitae: Journal of the Society for the History of Discoveries 2:1 (1970), pp. 7-14.
↑ John S. Brewer, The Court of King James the First by Godfrey Goodman, vol. 1 (London, 1839), p. 37.